During the 1964 presidential election, the reelection campaign for President Lyndon B. Johnson produced two now-classic ads against Republican challenger Barry Goldwater. The first and most famous ad, “Daisy,” featured a young girl counting down a flower’s remaining petals in sync with a pending nuclear explosion. The second, “Confessions of a Republican,” starred a young, self-identified conservative expressing his doubts about Goldwater’s potential presidency. On the heels of last week’s “Role Models” commercial, Hillary Clinton unveiled a “Confessions” remake featuring the same actor, who starred as Frontline host Kent Wallace in one of Chappelle’s Show‘s most popular skits. (More details below.)
William Bogert, who was 28 years old during the 1964 election, wasn’t just reading a script. Per the ad agency’s casting requirements, he was a voting Republican at the time, and Goldwater’s candidacy really did frighten him. “I just couldn’t stand Barry Goldwater,” he said in a 2014 interview, adding: “My father was disappointed that I did this commercial. He thought my performance was good, but he disagreed with the entire thesis.” The thesis that, due to Goldwater’s affiliation with groups like the Ku Klux Klan, a Johnson White House was preferable.
Over 50 years later, Donald Trump’s loose affiliation with the same group and countless other questionable instances have made Republicans nervous. So much so that Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson‘s campaign just might steal a enough conservative votes to give Clinton the advantage come November. Hence the “Confessions” remake, in which Bogert applies many of the same concerns he had for Goldwater to Trump. “I think the party is about to make a terrible mistake in Cleveland,” he warns viewers, “and I’m going to have to vote against that mistake.”
This isn’t the first time the original “Confessions” ad (and Bogert’s involvement) has popped up in the current election. In March, the 80-year-old actor discussed the commercial, his past thoughts on Goldwater, and his current feelings about Trump and the Republican Party on several cable news programs. During one such interview with CNN’s Don Lemon, Bogert stressed that he hadn’t voted Republican since John Lindsay — who left the party in 1971 after Goldwater’s disastrous loss to Johnson.
“In those days, of course, the Republican Party was the party of Lindsay and Jacob Javits. People like that. To a somewhat lesser degree, Nelson Rockefeller. Now, I feel about almost all of the current nominees the way I felt about Mr. Goldwater. No, worse than that, because Senator Goldwater was a very good senator. He did a lot of good things. He was a blessing to the people of Arizona.”
A brief history of American party politics notwithstanding, Bogert’s involvement with the Clinton campaign may prove interesting for an entirely unrelated reason — his work on Chappelle’s Show in the early 2000s. If his look and voice ring any bells, that’s probably because both frequented one of the most popular sketches on comedian Dave Chappelle’s Comedy Central program.
Frontline, which spoofed the PBS program of the same name (and Ted Koppel’s Nightline late night news show on ABC), delved into such topics as an African-American member of the KKK, racist animal actors and other classics. As host Wallace, Bogert narrated the otherwise ridiculous scenarios depicted by the sketch series and interviewed figures like Chappelle’s Clayton Bigsby, the black KKK member who was, as it turns out, blind.
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